The Great American X-C Invitational in North Carolina this past weekend, one of the premier cross-country meets on the east coast. Five days later, an open invitational in East Greenwich with about dozen schools from Rhode Island.
For Narragansett’s Cole Francis and Maddie O’Neil, it didn’t make a difference. As long as a you have a fair course and the competition to push you, it didn’t matter. To them, a race is a race.
The two Mariner runners got all they needed at Thursday’s Avenger Invitational at East Greenwich. With never even a thought of utilizing the East Greenwich meet as a tempo run of a fast training effort, both had to exert every bit of energy to prove victorious at the end.
In the girls’ competition, O’Neil and North Kingstown freshman Abbie Tighe pushed the pace from the beginning, building a sizable gap on the chase pack before hitting the wooded section for the final two miles. O’Neil was able to break away from Tighe in the closing stages en route to a winning time of 18 minutes, 42.13 seconds for the 5K course. Tighe was second in 18:52.36, while Mount Hope’s Jessica Deal secured third with a time of 19:14.45.
“I really just wanted to get a good time here,” said O’Neil, who was 59th overall at the Great American, where she clocked a PR of 18:48.50. “I just wanted to push it and see what I can do.”
Francis had to contend with promising X-C newcomer Sean Gray of Portsmouth. The two harriers were neck and neck for the first half of the race before Francis was able to distance himself in the final mile to win with a strong cocking of 15:45.54. Gray held on for the runner-up position, crossing the line at 16:04.49. He was well ahead of Devn Shipperly of North Kingstown, who was third at 16:41.20.
“It was a great opportunity, very nice course, awesome competition. Sean Gray had an awesome race today. I was very lucky to have him push me the whole way,” Francis said. “It was a great opportunity to run fast. Great American was a very fast course. I think today, a very fast course locally. I was just excited to see what I can do, coming off that race today. I’m pleased with the effort.”
The Narragansett junior’s performance follows his 30th place, top RI finish at Great American where he ran his all-time best and state-leader of 15:34.20 in the Race of Champions. With the class championships on Oct. 28 and the State Meet a week later, Francis believes he’s right where he needs to be.
“I feel amazing,” he said. “There is no such thing as a perfect race. There’s always areas to improve in, things to work on in practice, things to work on just strategically in the race. I definitely have things I want to sit down with my coach and talk about before those two championship season races. I am very happy with where I am at right now and looking forward to improving on it later in the season.”
In the Freshmen 4K races, North Kingstown’s Alex Turcotte and Mount Hope’s Kara Pisasale captured the respective boys’ and girls’ titles. Turcotte came on strong the second half of his race to win with a time of 14:31.23, a comfortable 10-seconds ahead of Coventry’s Declan McConkey (second, 14:41.54). North Kingstown’s William Beck was third at 14:56.73.
Pisasale broke the tape in 16:50.92. North Smithfield’s Julia Dowling, the early race-leader, took runner-up honors in 17:01.58. Finishig third was Julia Crossland and East Greenwich in 18:00.94.
